To retain healthy and beautiful skin is an issue of very much concern, in particular for women. However, the condition of the skin is constantly under the influence of factors such as humidity, ultraviolet rays, increasing age, diseases, stress and dietary habits, and as a result, there occur various skin troubles, such as deterioration of general functions of the skin and aging of the skin.
Among others, wrinkles or sagging skin develop as a consequence of aging of the skin due to increasing age, photoaging due to the exposure to sunlight, etc. That is, the cells producing dermal fibers become smaller in both size and number, and particularly a large quantity of collagen fibers are lost, concomitantly with exposure to sunlight or an increase in the age. Thus, degeneration of the dermis, reduction of the subcutaneous adipose tissue, and the like lead to the aging of the skin, and this aging mainly causes wrinkles, laxity of the skin and loss of skin elasticity.
There have been hitherto proposed compositions or methods for suppressing or ameliorating the aging process including such wrinkles, sagging skin and the like (Patent Document 1, Patent Document 2, Patent Document 3, Patent Document 4, Patent Document 5 and Patent Document 6), but their effects were not necessarily sufficiently satisfactory.
Therefore, the applicant of the present invention found that the extract of horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) has an excellent action of ameliorating wrinkles, and filed a patent application before (Patent Document 7). However, it was not completely clear of what component present in horse chestnut attains the manifestation of the aforementioned action.    Patent Document 1 JP-A-62-185005    Patent Document 2 JP-A-62-502546    Patent Document 3 JP-A-02-72157    Patent Document 4 JP-A-02-288822    Patent Document 5 JP-A-07-41419    Patent Document 6 JP-A-06-510542    Patent Document 7 JP-A-2005-8571